In an effort to increase recognition abroad as well as prevent smirks, giggles, or shocked stares from English speakers, more businesses and private organizations are dropping the regional name “Kinki” from their titles and replacing it with “Kansai.” On Wednesday, the 71-member Kinki Federation ...

More than two years after the anti-Korean group Zaitokukai made international headlines with racial slurs and threats of violence, local governments around Japan are making it far more difficult for any group attacking minorities to operate. As of last month, over 100 prefectural, city, ...

Kyoto’s recent record-setting tourism boom has sparked a mini-“hotel war,” with some of the world’s best-known luxury inn chains opening branches in the ancient capital, as its international popularity as a travel destination spreads even further. Not too many years ago, Kyoto had a ...

A leading Kansai business lobby will soon unveil a proposed reworking of the upcoming magnetically levitated railway, leader Shosuke Mori said in a recent interview. The current maglev plan takes a two-stage approach. The section between Tokyo and Nagoya is expected to open in ...

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto resigns as co-leader of Ishin no To (Japan Innovation Party) to focus on local elections in the spring, a move likely to further weaken the party's clout at the national level.

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto reportedly plans to resign as co-leader of Ishin no To (Japan Innovation Party) to focus on local elections in the spring, a move likely to further weaken the party’s clout at the national level. Ishin no To Secretary-General Ichiro Matsui ...

The number of passengers on overseas flights through Kansai International Airport is projected to have risen 10 percent this year to a record 13.04 million due to the weaker yen and increase in budget-airline flights, the airport operator said. The figure will surpass the ...

Judging by the frequent overheated rhetoric coming out of parts of the Japanese media, you’d think Japan and China were heading toward war. Of course, none of those now beating the drums for war will ever be drafted to fight. They are confident that, ...

Business leaders in the Kansai region have issued a warning to Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda that the yen’s slide to a six-year low is raising the cost of importing raw materials and fuel, which could spell trouble for the economy. Firms in ...

After the Shiga gubernatorial election earlier this month, in which Taizo Mikazuki, the hand-picked successor to former Gov. Yukiko Kada, defeated the ruling coalition’s candidate, certain media agencies and pundits suggested that collective self-defense had no impact on the race. Such arguments were factually ...